Beverages such as tea and coffee are usually prepared in the home using ground coffee, tea bags or loose-leaf tea. However, the long brewing time and mess after brewing are inconvenient.
Devices for automatically brewing tea are known. One type of brewing device, described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,619,904 and WO 2008/058576 consists of a brewing container which fits on top of a tea pot. Leaf tea or other beverage material is placed in the brewing container, and hot water is then introduced. Once brewing has been completed, the liquid is transferred from the brewing container into the tea pot. The brewing container is then removed, and the beverage is poured out of the tea pot into a cup. WO 2008/156283 discloses an extractor for extracting loose green tea leaves with pressurized hot water. After extraction, the beverage passes out of the extractor and out through a pipe.
Automatic capsule-based coffee brewing devices are well known. Ground coffee is provided in a single use capsule or cartridge, through which hot water is passed to brew the beverage. The spent coffee material is retained or collected in the capsule after brewing, which makes for easy disposal and no mess. These devices provide a convenient, rapid and consumer-friendly way of brewing beverages. However, whilst these devices are generally recognized by consumers to provide good quality coffee beverages, similar devices for making tea have not always achieved the same acceptance. Consumers often perceive tea from such a brewing device as not being of high quality.
Capsule-based devices for brewing tea have been designed which have a transparent infusion chamber, see for example, WO 2007/042485. The tea leaves immersed in the liquid are visible to the user whilst infusion takes place. After brewing, the tea beverage is dispensed vertically downwards from a spout beneath the infusion chamber. Whilst having a transparent infusion chamber helps to emphasize the quality and “tea-ness” of the beverage, as distinct from coffee making machines, it would nonetheless be desirable to improve the perception of the quality of beverages from devices for making tea. Hence it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for brewing a tea beverage in a capsule-based brewing device which addresses this problem.